Presents a collection of traditional rhymes, rewritten to feature Russian characters and scenes.

"An autobiographical meditation on the writing and reading of haiku, the essence of haiku mind, and the country and culture that nurtured the form"--

So Forth, Joseph Brodsky's first collection of poems since To Urania (1988), gathers together some four dozen of the Nobel laurete's peoms. Some have been translated by the author and other hands from his native Russian, and others were written in English.

Book of poetry by William Carlos Williams. Table of contents - A Negro Woman - The Ivy Crown - View by Color Photography on a Commercial Calendar" - The Sparrow - The King! - The Lady Speaks - Tribute to the Painters - To a Man Dying on His Feet - Come on! - The Pink Locust - Classic Picture - Address - The Drunk and the Sailor - A Smiling Dane - Shadows - Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

"Weinberg takes us across centuries from ancient Miletus to medieval Baghdad and Oxford, from Plato's Academy and the Museum of Alexandria to the cathedral school of Chartres and the Royal Society of London. He shows that the scientists of ancient and medieval times not only did not understand what we understand about the world--they did not understand what there is to understand, or how to understand it. Yet over the centuries, through the struggle to solve such mysteries as the curious backward movement of the planets and the rise and fall of the tides, the modern discipline of science eventually emerged"--Amazon.com ; Presents a commentary on the history of science that examines historic clashes and collaborations between science and the competing realms of religion, technology, poetry, mathematics, and philosophy

"A lovely work of writing and a rich scientific exploration of trees, suffused with poetry and humanity. Between Earth and Sky takes us on a journey through the wonders of the forest canopy and the web of spiritual and literal connections we have with trees. Nalini Nadkarni is a unique figure in forest ecology—as a pioneering tree climber and explorer, and a topnotch scientist, she's a hero in a world where heroes don't come around often."—Richard Preston, author of The Wild Trees and The Hot Zone “Besides cutting them, climbing them, and planting them, the urge to anthropomorphize trees, make them into metaphors, and worship them, is practically universal. Many people feel an intimate connection to trees. Nadkarni's scientific, personal, and literary book shows why, on so many levels, this should be so. Although the ancient Chinese thought of humans as the connection between earth and sky, my vote would go to trees.”—Liza Dalby, author of East Wind Melts the Ice “From mosses to giant figs, from nail polish to turpentine, from poetry to rap music, world-acclaimed arbornaut Nadkarni weaves science and story together as she shares her passion for trees, reminding us that forests and humans are inextricably linked.” –Margaret D. Lowman, author of Life in the Treetops and It's a Jungle Up There “I came in from an afternoon of splitting firewood to find this book waiting for me in the mail. It's as wonderful a compendium as one could imagine of all things that make trees such special companions, rooted and steady and patient and full of glory.”—Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader “An epic and lyrical look at trees—an exploration that ranges from molecules and metabolism to ecology, poetry and dance—so breathtaking and eye-opening that it will be impossible to ever look at a tree or think about the world in the same way again.”—Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, The Heinz Center

"A lovely work of writing and a rich scientific exploration of trees, suffused with poetry and humanity. Between Earth and Sky takes us on a journey through the wonders of the forest canopy and the web of spiritual and literal connections we have with trees. Nalini Nadkarni is a unique figure in forest ecology--as a pioneering tree climber and explorer, and a topnotch scientist, she's a hero in a world where heroes don't come around often."--Richard Preston, author of The Wild Trees and The Hot Zone "Besides cutting them, climbing them, and planting them, the urge to anthropomorphize trees, make them into metaphors, and worship them, is practically universal. Many people feel an intimate connection to trees. Nadkarni's scientific, personal, and literary book shows why, on so many levels, this should be so. Although the ancient Chinese thought of humans as the connection between earth and sky, my vote would go to trees."--Liza Dalby, author of East Wind Melts the Ice "From mosses to giant figs, from nail polish to turpentine, from poetry to rap music, world-acclaimed arbornaut Nadkarni weaves science and story together as she shares her passion for trees, reminding us that forests and humans are inextricably linked." -Margaret D. Lowman, author of Life in the Treetops and It's a Jungle Up There "I came in from an afternoon of splitting firewood to find this book waiting for me in the mail. It's as wonderful a compendium as one could imagine of all things that make trees such special companions, rooted and steady and patient and full of glory."--Bill McKibben, author of The Bill McKibben Reader "An epic and lyrical look at trees--an exploration that ranges from molecules and metabolism to ecology, poetry and dance--so breathtaking and eye-opening that it will be impossible to ever look at a tree or think about the world in the same way again."--Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, The Heinz Center

Countless school children have recited the opening line of Poe's The Raven: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary..." But Poe is valued not only for his poetry. He was also a prolific writer of short stories, the creator of two literary forms that readers everywhere enjoy--the detective story and the horror thriller.

The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, Leo Strauss On Plato's "Symposium" offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did. Given as a course in autumn 1959 under the title "Plato's Political Philosophy," at the University of Chicago, these transcripts previously had circulated in samizdat fashion, passed down from one generation of students to the next. They show Strauss at his best, in his subtle and sometimes indirect style of analysis, which has attracted almost as much commentary as has the content of his thought. Strauss presents a coherent and complete interpretation of the Symposium, proceeding by a meticulous reading from beginning to end. Operating on the once common hypothesis that commentary is an excellent method of expounding the truth, Strauss sheds light not only on the meaning of the dialogue and its place in the Platonic corpus, but also on a host of important topics, including the nature of eros and its place in the overall economy of human life; the perennial quarrel between poetry and philosophy, and the relation of both to piety, politics, and morality; the character of Socrates and the questions of his trial; and many other matters. As provocative as they were a half century ago, these important lectures will be welcomed by students of classics, philosophy, politics, psychology, and political philosophy.

"In this brilliant and hilarious jailbreak of a novel, Charyn channels the genius poet and her great leaps of the imagination." —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) Jerome Charyn, "one of the most important writers in American literature" (Michael Chabon), continues his exploration of American history through fiction with The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson , hailed by prize-winning literary historian Brenda Wineapple as a "breathtaking high-wire act of ventriloquism." Channeling the devilish rhythms and ghosts of a seemingly buried literary past, Charyn removes the mysterious veils that have long enshrouded Dickinson, revealing her passions, inner turmoil, and powerful sexuality. The novel, daringly written in first person, begins in the snow. It's 1848, and Emily is a student at Mount Holyoke, with its mournful headmistress and strict, strict rules. Inspired by her letters and poetry, Charyn goes on to capture the occasionally comic, always fevered, ultimately tragic story of her life-from defiant Holyoke seminarian to dying recluse.

A warrior woman and her dark twin are destined to remake the world in this "powerful" tale, the first in a trilogy by a World Fantasy Award winner ( Newsweek ). Legend foretold the child named Jenna, who was three-times orphaned before she could crawl, a fate that would leave her in the hands of women who worshipped the benevolent goddess Great Alta. In this world without men, Jenna comes of age, learning quickly the skills of close combat. But her most powerful gift lies elsewhere: a mirror sister who emerges only in the darkness--a twin named Skada--and shares the soul of the young, white-haired warrior who might well be the goddess reborn. But if Jenna is, in truth, the one whose coming is awaited, there is cause for great alarm among those who rule the Dales, for the prophecy speaks of upheaval and change, and a devastating end of all things. An incomparable world-builder and one of America's premier fantasists, the remarkable Jane Yolen begins a three-part saga as inventive, intelligent, and exciting as anything that has ever been produced in the literature of the fantastic. Brilliantly contrasting the "true" story of Jenna with the later myths, poetry, and so-called scholarship that her coming engendered, Yolen creates a culture as richly imagined as those found in the acclaimed novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. A truly magnificent work, Sister Light, Sister Dark takes fantasy fiction to wondrous places it has never gone before.

In this scintillating book, Ian Buruma peels away the myths that surround Japanese culture. With piercing analysis of cinema, theatre, television, art and legend, he shows the Japanese both 'as they imagine themselves to be, and as they would like themselves to be.' A Japanese Mirror examines samurai and gangsters, transvestites and goddesses to paint an eloquent picture of life in Japan. This is a country long shrouded in enigma and in his compelling book, Buruma reveals a culture rich in with poetry, beauty and wonder.

Although remembered mostly for her audacious bestseller, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein was a unique literary artist of the twentieth century who left a voluminous body of work, including novels, essays, poetry, and prose. Stymied--just once--by a case of writer's block, Stein forayed into the world of mystery fiction to rediscover her path to creativity. Combining elements of free association and interior monologue that earned her reputation as an avant-garde stylist, Stein drew from a summer's worth of mysterious events at her French country home for inspiration. Blood on the Dining-Room Floor is the brilliant result. A possible murder disrupts the peaceful setting when, in a nearby village, Madame Pernollet is found on the cement courtyard of her husband's hotel. Did she fall from a window above . . . or was she pushed? Was there someone who wanted the preoccupied woman out of the way? In a departure from the typical whodunit, with nary a detective to lead the way, Stein lays out a series of crimes and clues, enticing readers to come up with their own verdict on the baffling events of one unnatural summer.

From Two Live Crew's controversial comedy to Ice Cube's gangsta styling and the battle rhymes of a streetcorner cypher, rap has always drawn on deep traditions of African American poetic word-play, In Talking 'Bout Your Mama, author Elijah Wald explores one of the most potent sources of rap: the viciously funny, outrageously inventive insult game known as "the dozens." So what is the dozens? At its simplest, it's a comic chain of "yo' mama" jokes. At its most complex, it's an intricate form of social interaction that reaches back to African ceremonial rituals. Wald traces the tradition of African American street rhyming and verbal combat that has ruled urban neighborhoods since the early 1900s. Whether considered vernacular poetry, aggressive dueling, a test of street cool, or just a mess of dirty insults, the dozens is a basic building block of African-American culture. A game which could inspire raucous laughter or escalate to violence, it provided a wellspring of rhymes, attitude, and raw humor that has influenced pop musicians from Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson to Tupac Shakur and Jay Z. Wald goes back to the dozens' roots, looking at mother-insulting and verbal combat from Greenland to the sources of the Niger, and shows its breadth of influence in the seminal writings of Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston; the comedy of Richard Pryor and George Carlin; the dark humor of the blues; the hip slang and competitive jamming of jazz; and in its ultimate evolution into the improvisatory battling of rap. From schoolyard games and rural work songs to urban novels and nightclub comedy, and pop hits from ragtime to rap, Wald uses the dozens as a lens to provide new insight into over a century of African American culture. A groundbreaking work, Talking 'Bout Your Mama is an essential book for anyone interested in African American cultural studies, history and linguistics, and the origins of rap music.

The universe, reimagined, through pop culture, poetry and theoretical physics - from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos[Bokinfo]

A healing path using the power of dreams, theater, poetry, and shamanism • Shows how psychological realizations can cause true transformation when manifested by concrete poetic acts • Includes many examples of the surreal but successful actions Jodorowsky has prescribed to those seeking his help While living in Mexico, Alejandro Jodorowsky became familiar with the colorful and effective cures provided by folk healers. He realized that it is easier for the unconscious to understand the language of dreams than that of rationality. Illness can even be seen as a physical dream that reveals unresolved emotional and psychological problems. Psychomagic presents the shamanic and genealogical principles Jodorowsky discovered to create a healing therapy that could use the powers of dreams, art, and theater to empower individuals to heal wounds that in some cases had traveled through generations. The concrete and often surreal poetic actions Jodorowsky employs are part of an elaborate strategy intended to break apart the dysfunctional persona with whom the patient identifies in order to connect with a deeper self. That is when true transformation can manifest. For a young man who complained that he lived only in his head and was unable to grab hold of reality and advance toward the financial autonomy he desired, Jodorowsky gave the prescription to paste two gold coins to the soles of his shoes so that all day he would be walking on gold. A judge whose vanity was ruling his every move was given the task of dressing like a tramp and begging outside one of the fashionable restaurants he loved to frequent while pulling glass doll eyes out of his pockets. The lesson for him was that if a tramp can fill his pockets with eyeballs, then they must be of no value, and thus the eyes of others should have no bearing on who you are and what you do. Taking his patients directly at their words, Jodorowsky takes the same elements associated with a negative emotional charge and recasts them in an action that will make them positive and enable them to pay the psychological debts hindering their lives.

An inquiry into the romantic literary tradition that covers Coleridge, Pater, Emerson, and Stevens focuses on the relation between influence-anxieties and the fear of death and the defensive abilities of the imagination

For thirty years, Rich's poetry has revealed the individual personal life—sexualities, loves, damages, struggles—as inseparable from a wider social condition, a world with others, in which the empowering of the disempowered is increasingly the source of human hope. Now her mature vision engages with the power of time itself: memory and its contradictions, the ebb and flow between parents and children, the deaths we all face sooner or later, the meaning of human responsibility in all this. "Letters in the Family," for example, is written in the voices of three women—from the Spanish Civil War, from a Jewish rescue mission behind Nazi lines, and from present-day Southern Africa. Time's Power shows Rich writing with unprecedented range, complexity, and authority.

In addition to 13 poems, this volume contains essays about poetry and about the author's life.

The author presents her own poetry on witches, ghosts, magic, and other aspects of Halloween.